Beech, European beech (Fagus sylvatica) is certainly not one of the typical precious woods and is not normally found in our shop. However, burl beech wood, which is also marketed under the name truffle beech, has an incredible range of natural colors, structures, and patterns due to fungal infestation. The pattern caused by the fungus gets its incredible variety of colors from a complex interplay of fungal infestation, temperature, oxygen supply, and moisture—the result is always unique, with no repeatable results. The fine black lines are the wood's attempts to isolate individual areas from new fungal infestation, and the resulting images are unique. Please note that the wood is slightly to severely degraded during the tanning process, and the weight and thus the density and hardness are only about half that of untanned wood. This wood should only be processed by stabilizing it with acrylic or epoxy resins. Please bear in mind that spalted wood may have soft spots.
